Stephen M. Downs, MD, MS, FACMI

Dr. Downs received is bachelor’s degree in cellular biology and chemistry from the University of Colorado, and his MD from Stanford. He was also the first student to complete the Stanford Medical Informatics training program and received a master’s degree in medical information science from Stanford in 1986, which he later supplemented with postgraduate training in pediatrics at the University of North Carolina. He was a Robert Wood Johnson scholar in clinical epidemiology at Chapel Hill, and began his faculty career there as a assistant and then associate professor of pediatrics and biomedical engineering. From 1997 to 2002 he was the principal investigator of the Duke–University of North Carolina biomedical informatics training grant. In 2001 he moved to Indiana University, where he is associate professor and chief of general pediatrics at Wishard and Clarian hospitals, and founding director of the Children’s Health Services Research Section in the School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics.

His informatics research interests have ranged over many topics. These include using the expected value of information for a variety of purposes, such as the scoring of student performance on computer simulations (which has been adopted by the American Board of Family Practice as an examination scoring method for recertification) and use of expected value of information as a basis for prioritizing physician reminders. His election to the College recognizes these sustained contributions to informatics research and education.